My note to you this week will be brief but packed with a couple key tips around your social selling efforts going into 2015. As I attend numerous conferences, panel discussions, and webinars each year, I often hear questions from the audience that go like “what is the most important social selling tool”, or “How should we get started with our social selling effort”, and even “Can you measure the ROI of your social selling efforts”? Although I don’t have the perfect answer to these questions, I would simply say that social should be embraced by your organization and sales reps.

Here are a couple tips I gleaned from Koka Sexton and Jill Rowley during an interview at Dreamforce which has helped me to simplify my own understanding around key social selling best practices:

KOKA SAYS – Make your linked profile more about your REPUTATION than your RESUME. The point here is to not simply list your past jobs and titles, but to take the time to create a sense of who you really are, what matters most to you, what are your values, and how have you helped others advance their own careers. This type of profile allows viewers to see the real you and the positive reputation and personal impact that goes along with it.

JILL SAYS – Don’t think of your contact list as PROSPECTS, but rather FUTURE EVANGELISTS. The thought here is that sales people try to break through to prospects by pitching the value of their solution and getting their foot into the door with the hopes of securing a future meeting. By treating your contacts as future evangelists you will need to invest time in getting to know them and by being interested in helping them. Mike Pierce (aka Antarctic Mike), a speaker at some AA-ISP events, notes that it’s critically important to be genuinely interested in the challenges and needs of others. He goes on to say how he tries to offer assistance where he can when reaching out and getting to know people, especially as he is forming a relationship early on. By offering help or just an open ear to new contacts, they will gain trust and respect for you and what you do.

Want to LEARN a lot more tips about SOCIAL SELLING?! Be sure to register for the SOCIAL SELLING SUMMIT on Thursday, 1/29/15. Koka, Jill, and many others including Matt Heinz, Lori Richardson, Jamie Shanks, Steve Richard, and Julio Viskovich (to name a few) will be presenting!